A blog from a science nut, computer geek, sometimes philosopher, and a human. Based out of Denver, with a love of Antarctica, I seem to wander the world so who knows where I'll be in 6 months.

Cells on the plane are acoming

by wonderfullyrich on September 17, 2009

Like Snakes on a Plane, you may be cussing like Samuel L. Jackson at the way cell phones are slithering on to your jet. It is however an ineveitable upgrade, one to which I would encourage you to learn to cope with as the added convince and increased ability to work means that even those of you who swear you won’t use it, will likely one day turn your phone on in a plane.

Frankly I find it strange that people would fight this. It’s not going to cause any further deaths, unlike driving while talking on a cell phone, so for those of you who are outraged, I might ask you to find something more sane to be outraged about. Say perhaps pork barrel spending of your senator, the horribly low Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard that contributing to your asthma, or even US made and dropped cluster bombs that continue to kill people today. It’s worth remind you that you are more likely to get killed by a lighting strike then to die on an airplane in the US (As compared to 50,000+ people a year die in auto accidents per year, 20 times the amount of people who died on Sept 11th, 2001). With the harden electronics on an airliner, a cell phones could possibly do something, but it’s a risk that is hotly debated and to me seems unlikely.

Sorry the outrage gets to me occasionally. I’m here in Kampala listening to people talk about Rwanda’s brutal nature, riots about land and other uniquely African power struggles and when people whine about using your cell phone it can be a bit overwhelming. On the plus side though, it is a culture where you can whine about it if you want. I might be outraged, but it’s your right to talk about it.